Well, dear readers, would you like to know what’s frustrating? Well, I’ll be happy to tell you what’s frustrating – frustrating are constant interruptions and distractions when one is trying to concentrate and write, that’s what frustration is and yesterday was an entire day of it and I was ready to commit mayhem on a frozen chicken breast. I kept at it, but it was VERY difficult, and I only hope that I like what I read today when I futz and finesse. Although, I’m at the point in the book where I think I won’t like anything that I’ve written the day before but then I read it and do like it once it’s futzed and finessed. But I do NOT want another day of interruptions and distractions, not one more day of it and woe to the person or persons who interrupt and distract, woe to whomever they might be, woe, I say, woe them. I did manage to write eleven and a half pages and I’ll try to write four more before bed. I did manage to watch a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Invaders from Mars, a movie about invaders from Mars. I first saw the movie back in 1955 when the 1953 movie was reissued especially for kiddie matinees, and I attended such a matinee at the Lido Theater with two other science fiction films. I loved the movie and found it very scary. Then I saw it on TV all the time, but in black-and-white, which is not the way to see it. Later, when it became impossible to see, I lucked into a Kodachrome 16mm print that looked really good. The laserdisc came out and while it didn’t look good at all, thanks to a substandard print, it did include the alternate European ending, which I had and provided to them and am thanked for on the laserdisc. Then it came out on DVD and that was even worse. The ”owner” of the film was a real character, that’s the nice way of putting it. The problem was he wouldn’t let anyone restore it and he couldn’t restore it even though he said he was going to. The reality was, despite all the trouble this person caused over the years with any number of films he’d bought or submitted copyright forms for when something had fallen out of copyright, well, he was both legendary and notorious, not necessarily in that order.
But a few years ago, the original camera negative turned up overseas and those people owned the rights to it. As it turns out, the US guy didn’t really own all the rights, just a few rights, like TV, something he neglected to mention. I believe there was a back-and-forth between the two entities, but in the end the folks with the camera negative restored the film. Unfortunately, it was missing the opticals, of which there were more than a few, so those sequences had to be taken from a few 35mm prints. Scott MacQueen did the restoration and just to get it out of the way, he did an amazing job. Obviously, the camera negative stuff is superb, and the film has never looked better for those sequences. I thought it was fairly easy to spot where the prints had been used – less detail and contrast a bit weaker than the camera negative material. The film remains one of my favorites and it’s really well done, even the men in the Martian suits are fine by me. The real mind blower is the sound, which is spectacular mono. The color is timed differently than a Super Cinecolor print would have been and that’s a good thing, as that was never a very vivid printing process. In fact, my Kodachrome print was very much like this restoration albeit perhaps just a bit darker in certain scenes and that was my only slight critique is that a few sequences looked a bit bright to my eye. But to have it looking this good is a dream come true. It’s available in 4K and Blu-ray and I’d love to see it in 4K but I don’t have that kind of TV since my TV is from 2008. Here is an original painting by L.J. Dopp that hangs on my den wall.
Yesterday was frustrating due to the interruptions and distractions. I got almost eight hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, ordered pasta papa and a Caesar salad from Hugo’s, which arrived pretty quickly. I ate that, then I finally began futzing and finessing the previous day’s writing. I thought I’d not be happy with it, but I was once it was finessed. I then began writing new pages and that’s when the interruptions and distractions began. So, it was a lot of stopping and starting, but I did manage eight pages or so before taking the movie break. I thought all that would abate after the movie, so I began writing again and only got three and a half more pages done because the interruptions and distractions kept on keeping on. Hopefully, I can do three and a half pages more before bed and that will be fifteen and then I can only hope I find them decent.
Today, I’ll try to be up by ten or eleven and then I’ll futz and finesse, write new pages, eat something light but amusing, write new pages, do whatever needs doing, I will brook not a single interruption or distraction and woe to those who attempt such things. Then at some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I’m told I’ll see episode seven, so that will be fun, and I will, of course write, Friday is another marathon rehearsal day and I’ll have to do all of my writing prior to that, she of the Evil Eye is supposed to come on Saturday but I’m rearranging that as I can’t get up that early and have to leave, not with a stumble-through and then having to go directly to the club for sound check and then show. Sunday we won’t really need to do sound check and then we play our sold out show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by ten or eleven, futz and finesse, write new pages, eat, write new pages, and then at some point, watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you dear readers get to ask me or any dear readers any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like, so let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have no more interruptions or distractions.